The present invention relates to data processing by digital computer, and more particularly to context and action-based application design.
Business applications aid users in performing their activities within an enterprise. For example, a business application can guide a user through the steps of a certain business process in a particular order, e.g., hiring a new employee. Business applications typically include a number of services. For different steps in a business process, the business application can provide the user with one or more services at a user interface (UI), such as filling in and submitting a form to a database and ordering items.
A service is typically implemented as a set of procedures or functions hosted on network server. A business application can request data from the server by submitting a set of parameters to the set of procedures or functions on the server.
Services can be implemented as Web services that allow a user of a web browser to request extended markup language (XML) data from the server by submitting parameters to the server. Web services, also referred to as application services, are services that are made available from a business's Web server for Web users or other Web-connected programs. Web services can include services such as storage management and customer relationship management (CRM).
With a transition from client-server based database application paradigm to a service based paradigm, applications can be more independent a backend and support a more flexible recomposition of services to support new business processes. In one particular example, applications referred to as composite applications compose a new application based on existing services and components.